The Desperate Midnight Wanderings of Severus Snape
by Cecilia Swift
Summary: It is midnight, and the moon is full. It is Christmas, and he should be spending it with her.


**The Desperate Midnight Wanderings of Severus Snape**

Midnight; the witching hour – and a full moon too… If Severus Snape had been a man more prone to enjoying the poetry of life's small moments he might have smiled. He wasn't though, and as he stole into a disused classroom on Christmas morning he was thinking only of stealth. He mentally berated himself for coming at all, not being a man who often yielded to temptation. The hands on the tower clock beat twelve times, coinciding with the bounce of his pulse.

At first he could not look up from the stone floor, so afraid – yes, afraid – was he of what he would see. After a minute or so he managed to turn his head to observe the magic blue of the midnight sky outside the frosted window. The silver of the glass put him in mind of Albus. "Severus," he had whispered, blue eyes warm over half-moon spectacles, "promise me you won't…" How maddeningly typical of Dumbledore to have known, even as the idea was blooming in Snape's mind. How infuriating that Snape was proving him right – and if there was one thing Severus Snape hated, it was proving people right. Even Albus, especially Albus… But he had to come. He had to see. A minute, no more, would sustain him through the next ten empty years. Just one glance.

He hazarded a step forward. The click of his heel on the cold stone snapped like a quick kiss. A seal of fate. He took another step, and another, and another, eyes fixed always on the shining black beetles that were his well-polished shoes. Finally, he dared to look up. A less desperate man might have smiled at the way his long black hair, which had hung like a black veil in front of him whilst his head was lowered, now parted like sham theatre curtains in response to his raised head. Unveiling a performance, a fiction, a fantasy.

The Mirror of Erised might have been sleeping. It belonged to the magic of midnight, full moons and Christmas mornings. Severus let his black eyes trace the gold frame like a palm, from the clawed feet to the incriminating description above. And then… The black eyes found the green, pooled in the ephemeral depths of the mirror. She smiled out at him; proud and happy and – his heart leapt – alive. Her hair was red like sunsets. The sun, he remembered, had always seemed to shine when Lily was around, as if it just wanted to spend time with her. She was older than the Lily he had last seen, older than Lily Potter had been. This Lily had creases around her smiling green eyes. This Lily had lived and loved. Loved _him_:

Standing, bashful, at her side was Severus Snape. This Severus was a carbon copy of the living Severus in looks and stature, down to the tips of the beetle-black shoes. But whilst the living Severus' hands were shaking and cold, the Severus who looked back – unsmiling but barely – wore a proud gold band on his ring finger. His hands were steady and entwined with the pretty white hands of Lily Snape. For Lily Snape she must be.

The living Severus was torn between a compulsion to recoil from the mirror and a desperate desire to dive into it; to wrestle with the imposter Snape and cup Lily's white face in his shaking, ring-less fingers. He might have fled from the room but, paradoxically, he found that he wanted to stay always inside it. Shaking all over now, his legs threatening to fail him, he leant against the chilled gold frame and blessed its solidity. Lily Snape did not – could not – see her trembling old friend. Lily Evans would have plied him with water, sat him down and gently brushed the hair from his eyes with kind white fingers. But Lily Evans was not here, so Severus Snape lifted his own quivering hand to his forehead and pushed back the black curtain that had threatened to fall on the scene.

At that moment, as the living Snape reeled at the cruel perfection of the picture, Lily Snape reached out and brushed a strand of unruly black hair from her husband's face. The Severus in the mirror blushed at her touch, and turned to look at her. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Lily Snape positively beamed up at him, pinching his sides to elicit some kind of movement from the motionless man. And then, to the living Severus' horror or delight – he couldn't decide which – the man in the mirror, the other Severus, laughed. He laughed. This man, who in looks and figure might have been the real Severus Snape, was not awkward or bitter or sad. He could laugh. He was happy. He might even have been kind.

But what broke the living Severus, what finally sent him to his knees, was the way Lily Snape looked up at her husband. She wrapped her arms possessively around him and rested her head on his breast. She looked up with the same green eyes that had frequented his dreams for a decade, and now haunted his steps around Hogwarts from behind a pair of Sellotaped spectacles. Lily Snape looked up at her husband with her beautiful green eyes shining with admiration and love. Love. So much love. The green eyes found the black and the black smiled back.

"Lily," the living Severus gasped. He reached out with his shaking ring-less fingers towards Lily Snape, hoping to grasp the hem of her robes. He wondered if she smelled the same as Lily Evans had, of apple blossom and acceptance. He wondered, and at this his heart reeled again, as if hearts were whole bodies that could be shaken and broken – he wondered if she smelled of himself. Upon feeling the cold glass under his palm he began to weep. He couldn't reach her.

Waves of grief passed over Severus Snape like the phases of a waning moon. After a while the shaking in his hands abated, and the heaving of his shoulders ceased. The tears on his cheeks faded like ghosts and went wherever tears go; into bottles or seas or somewhere-skies.

"Severus," Albus Dumbledore beckoned to Snape from the door, his voice quiet and soothing. He might have been addressing a lonely little boy. In a sense, he was. How long he had been standing there Snape did not know, did not wish to know. "Come, Severus. No more." Severus Snape risked a final glance at the figures in the mirror before climbing to his feet, straightening his clothes and turning away. He couldn't be sure but he thought he saw, in the face of Lily Snape, a look of compassion and a soft smile. For _him_, for the living Severus. The green eyes met the black and as he turned away he felt certain – well, nearly certain – that she knew. She understood.

Albus Dumbledore stood at the entrance to the disused classroom in a red dressing gown and fluffy slippers. He might have been Father Christmas, returned from his travels and wide awake still. He laid a kind hand on Snape's shoulder and urged him out into the corridor. Severus, he noticed, did not meet his eyes. As the two men made their silent way through the sleeping castle, a sense of peace settled in Albus Dumbledore's slippered toes (which was where he housed a great deal of emotional discomfort on the part of others). Severus was silent, but he no longer seemed unhappy. What Albus Dumbledore couldn't know, was that as Severus Snape turned away from the glass he had heard something. A single word whispered in an eternal soprano.

"Always."


End file.
